MANDEL: Melissa Merritt free after plea to manslaughter

And so it ends — not with a murder conviction and a life sentence, but with a plea to manslaughter and time served.

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Once facing three murder charges, Melissa Merritt, 44, is now a free woman with the rest of her life ahead, despite the trail of death in her wake.

Earlier this month, Merritt entered a surprise plea to manslaughter on the eve of her third trial on charges she was the “brains” behind the strangulation of her ex-husband, Caleb Harrison, with whom she was in a bitter custody dispute over their two children.

The 40-year-old father was the third member of the Harrison family to die under mysterious circumstances in that Mississauga house of horrors. Merritt’s former father-in-law Bill, 64, died in 2009, her ex-mother-in-law Bridget, 63, in 2010 and then her ex husband in 2013 — all their bodies discovered inside 3635 Pitch Pine Cres.

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Peel Regional Police finally became suspicious only after Caleb’s death and then theorized Merritt had conscripted Christopher Fattore, her new partner and father of four of her children, into killing all three Harrisons so she wouldn’t have to share her kids anymore.

It’s been a long and twisted judicial road ever since in a shocking true crime case that would even be covered in a Dateline NBC episode.

After Caleb assaulted her, Merritt left him in 2005 and the two were soon fighting over custody of their son and daughter.

The otherwise healthy Bill Harrison was first to die. He and his wife had recently been granted Caleb’s share of custody while he was in jail for a fatal drunk-driving crash.

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After Bill’s sudden death, Merritt abducted her kids and disappeared with Fattore to Nova Scotia. Seven months later, she was charged with parental abduction, the children were returned to Pitch Pine Cres., and Bridget, now a widow, was granted temporary sole custody.

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A year later, she, too, was dead, discovered at the bottom of the stairs by her grandson.

Three years later, Caleb was found strangled in his bed on the day Merritt and Fattore were supposed to return the two kids to his sole custody after they’d been alternating weeks over the summer.

In January 2014, Merritt and Fattore were arrested in Nova Scotia and accused of triple murder.

Fattore confessed to strangling Bridget and Caleb — a confession he later retracted — but insisted his beloved knew nothing. In 2018, a jury acquitted him of killing Bill, but found him guilty of murdering mother and son.

Following a preliminary hearing, Merritt’s charge of murdering Bill Harrison was dropped for lack of evidence. At her joint trial with Fattore, the jury also convicted her of first-degree murder in Caleb’s death  but were hung on whether she killed her mother-in-law and so a mistrial on that count was declared.

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On appeal, Ontario’s highest court upheld Fattore’s murder convictions, but ordered a new trial for Merritt due to judge’s errors. The attorney general signed a preferred indictment, sending the mom of six back to trial not only for Caleb’s murder, but for Bridget’s as well.

Once again, the legal path was complicated.

In March last year, jurors acquitted Merritt of Bridget’s murder but were deadlocked on whether she killed her ex-husband. Prosecutors announced they would try her a third time and last June, after 10 years behind bars, Superior Court Justice Jennifer Woollcombe released her on bail to live at her parents’ home in Guelph and await her third trial.

But it seems no one wanted to roll the dice again.

In her plea to manslaughter, Merritt finally admitted having a role in the death of her ex — to a point. In an agreed statement of facts, she admitted knowing Fattore was going to threaten Caleb if he didn’t back down and grant her more access to their kids. 

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Merritt also admitted knowing it may have gotten violent but claimed she never encouraged Fattore to kill Caleb and only learned about the murder later.

Woollcombe accepted the joint submission by Crown and defence of a 15-year sentence for manslaughter and with enhanced credit for her more than 10 years in custody, that Merritt spend just one more day in prison.

Now she can be permanently reunited with her wife, a former jail guard she wed in 2018, and her kids. The men in her life who once loved her are not as fortunate.

One ex is dead and another is serving life behind bars.

mmandel@postmedia.com

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